Speaking at the National Farmers' Union (NFU) Food Security Summit, a number of leading bodies from across the UK meat industry raised concern about the impact of the recent supply chain issues on the industry's plans for 2022.
Prior to the conference, a group comprising businesses and trade bodies from across the food industry warned of further disruption to UK supply chains if long-term solutions are not implemented by government.
The coalition comprised the NFU, the Food and Drink Federation, the National Pig Association, British Retail Consortium, Arla Foods UK and ABP UK.
The organisations called on the UK government “to set out a positive food and farming policy that creates a resilient and sustainable supply chain to underpin domestic food security.”
The Guardian reported that Minette Batters, NFU president, had found it challenging to remain in discussions with ministers over the past year while also getting them to understand the problems faced by the industry. She said: “We walk a tightrope of remaining at the table, and being locked out of the room […] It is for government to take it seriously, but there is a disconnect, but what do we do?”
Dr Zoe Davies, chief executive of the National Pig Association (NPA) also spoke about the challenges faced by the pig industry over the last year. She said that the lack of abattoir workers was still having an impact on the supply chain. According to NPA, 30,000 healthy pigs, including at least 10,000 piglets, have so far been killed on farms since the cull began in October this year.
A redefined business model
Bob Carnell, chief executive of ABP Food Group added that it was “very frustrating” that those who attended the conference “didn’t get any acknowledgement of [the labour shortages] from the Secretary of State.”
He added: “We have a business model that was set with 60% of colleagues as non-UK nationals, we went into a global pandemic which has stretched everybody, and we really need time to adjust. That is all we are asking for: to redefine the business model to allow us to move forward and that question is not being listened to and it is frustrating.”
Carnell said it would be possible to recruit some UK workers to fill vacancies, although the process takes time.
This story was originally published on a previous version of the Meat Management website and so there may be some missing images and formatting issues.
